Trip Without Trailer

I guess I've mentioned it a few times that we were planning a trip to CA without the trailer. Well, we left home this morning. Since we are in a bit of a hurry to get there, we drove about 10 hours from Dallas to Santa Rosa, NM.


- This is a view of Santa Rosa from Love's -

It was a good drive, traffic was heavy in Fort Worth, but once we got through that, it was smooth sailing all the way.

We went to dinner here in Santa Rosa at Joseph's restaurant. It's an old Route 66 place. The food was good.

Not much to do in Santa Rosa in the evening. That's good, I guess. We'll be getting up early in the morning, our next stop will be Kingman, AZ.

Tater

At least the weather looks good. I heard that some fires broke out in Southern Ca. last night from the dry lightening strikes.

Have a safe trip and keep the updates coming.

Be safe and have a great trip.

Before Kingman, if memory serves me right, there is a turn off for old route 66. A few extra miles but create scenic drive.

Been so busy having fun that the updates might have to wait until we get back home. I'll have about 3 weeks at home, and then we'll be heading for Florida.

Actually, when we get back on the road, I'll have some time.

Here is a little bit of info. The rest areas on the stretch of I-40 between Needles and Barstow are closed. That's a long way to go without going. There was a little town, not much more than a wide spot in the road (can't remember the name) that had a Dairy Queen. I was never so happy to see a DQ in my life!

Tater

You are a brave soul.. Going through Needles during the summer. I hope your a/c was on high.

Brave indeed. Rattle snakes and side winders luv the weather

Maxtor wrote:You are a brave soul.. Going through Needles during the summer. I hope your a/c was on high.

We passed through Needles so quickly, I didn't even notice. Was it hot? If it was, the A/C was keeping up with it. Actually, it was still pretty early in the morning. Didn't have any problems between Needles and Barstow except for the closed rest areas.

Tater

Probably 112 this afternoon if not higher. Interesting thing you encounter that I notice every time. From Barstow U climb. Endless slow up grade. At the top of the ride it is going down down down down down. In fact climbing out of the valley we sometimes drove into the clouds leaving.

Besides Death Valley, Needles is one of the hottest cities in California. I have seen it 110 degrees at midnight. When I was a kid, we would go through there at night, because we did not have a/c in our car back then. Even at night, we would keep the windows "rolled" up because the heat was like a blast furnace if you had the windows down. Redding is hot,, but not like Needles. The highest recorded temperature in Needles was 125 degrees in July of 2005. Our highest was only 118 degrees.

BTW... Death Valley California has a recorded high of 134 degrees.

Redding and Bakersfield. The arm pit of the central valley is what it has been called for year. All the heat ends up at each end.

38 miles north of Barstow is a place called Fort Irwin. Freeze in the winter and bake in the summer.

We're back home, and I'll summarize the remainder of the trip.
We left Santa Rosa, and about 10 miles West of Albuquerque we stopped to play at Route 66 Casino for about an hour, then continued on. After this the scenery gets very interesting and beautiful.


This is a lava flow near Grants, NM. I-40 goes right through the lava area.


It's a shame that such beautiful scenery is ruined by a tourist trap. Note the teepees about halfway up. This is just before coming to an Arizona rest area.

Right after we passed the AZ rest area, the sky started to look very threatening. It rained on us around Holbrook. After the rain, I looked out my window and saw a cloud with a pefect cross in it. I got out the camera, but it was almost too late to make it out.

Can you see the cross? It's right in the middle, and is starting to lose it's shape.

We stopped in Kingman for the night. The next morning, we continued on I-40 and headed towards Barstow and I-15.


This is a sphere house between Kingman and Needles. I've never been ready to snap the photo on previous trips, but this time I was waiting for it. Snap!

That's all the photos.

We arrived at our son's house in the early afternoon. Relaxed that evening and the next day. Saturday, the 17th, we started working on the window treatments. Scruffy and our son installed traverse rods, and flat curtain rods. We went shopping and bought lumber and brackets for cornices, and dowel rods, brackets and finials for a window treatment and a rod to hold a baby quilt that Scruffy's grandmother made for our grandson. That would hang above a door (high ceilings - plenty of room). I set up my sewing machine and started assembling and hemming drapes - the finishing touches to the drapes/valances that I made at home. My daughter-in-law and I discovered that their big island in the kitchen made a great ironing board for the big drapery panels. I would iron half and pass the iron to her and she would iron the other half. Worked much better than their ironing board, and the work went fast.

The following Thursday we took the day off and visited a couple near-by casinos. Then on Friday we finished hanging the last of the drapes. All was finished by Saturday morning, and we could all relax and enjoy each other's company. Our grandson doesn't live with his parents anymore - he has a house of his own, but he came over every evening after work, almost all day on the second Saturday and Sunday and took us out for dinner a couple times. The first weekend we were there, he took his boat out on the ocean to give it a workout - he just finished refurbishing it a few weeks ago. It was a wonderful visit, but it had to end. We left them on Tuesday, Sept 27 and headed to Las Vegas. We had 6 free nights at Sam's Town, but only used one. Sam's Town is getting old. The room was very clean, but kind of run down. The slot machines are old, and they have very few new ones since our last visit 2-3 years ago. The morning we left Sam's Town we went to Eastside Cannery right next door. When we left Las Vegas, we were up about $10 for the trip. Not bad, considering the odds are always against the player.

I'm getting tired. I have one more short report that I'll probably do tomorrow.

Tater

Is that a sphere house or a Radar Weather Station ?
We have some radar units that look like that around here.

Looks like a nice ride ya'll had.

wheres sam's town ? I can't recall seeing that one. Is it on freemont street ?

That's a house. People lived in it years ago. It looks like someone still lives there. To get a perspective on the size, the truck is on the highway, the house is about 75-100 feet off the highway, so I'd say they were about the same distance from the camera. It's a pretty big place.

Sam's Town is "off strip." Years ago, we stayed on the strip, then we started staying Downtown - now we prefer to stay off strip. Sam's Town is on Boulder Highway. We seldom go to the strip anymore. Slots are looser off strip and in some of the casinos Downtown. Neither of us play table games..... just not as much entertainment as slots.

Tater

If U get off 40 in Arizona and take the old route 66. Actually in some places there is an older 66. The scenery will be unbelievable.

Found a couple pics of LV.

Even though this isn't Scruffy's favorite beer, after driving from SD to LV, he thought it would sure be tasty:


Because traffic on I-15 was at a standstill, we decided to get off on Tropicana. Drove past NYNY where we stayed a couple times.

The last time we stayed there was our 40th anniversary. Our kids were there, too. Someone concocted a rediculous reason for needing our room key - it didn't make much sense, but we didn't want to be inpolite and refuse. Well, while we were playing downstairs, the kids were upstairs decorating our room. It was quite a surprise. Our room had a great view of the corner - we had an excellent view of MGM, Tropicana, Excalibur - and the back of the Statue of Liberty. Looked out one morning, and there were a couple guys on top of her head. They came up through a trapdoor and rappelled down the side of her head to do some maintenance.

>>>>>>

We left Las Vegas and headed to Gallup, NM, where we planned to spend the night. Wrong....... there were no rooms left in Gallup. So, we sat in the parking lot of the last hotel we checked and called ahead to Grants, NM. Got a room at the Holiday Inn Express. Next morning, we stopped at Route 66 casino for about an hour then headed to Amarillo. Stayed at a fairly new Holiday Inn. Cost per night seemed good until we checked out and found $25 worth of taxes added.

After I was dressed the morning we left, I looked out the window and saw this:

That is a Dallas Cowboys bus or motorhome. When we went to the dining room for breakfast, there was a big guy there wearing a cowboys shirt. He was talking with one of the kitchen attendants. I think he was the driver, and he was transporting the bus from one location to another. Maybe it's a traveling office, or private lounge for the players and staff. Or maybe Jerry Jones prefers staying in his own place when on the road. We'll probably never know.

Here is one more pic of the bus:

On the right, that's Scruffy cleaning the windows on our truck.

After breakfast we started on the last leg of the trip - heading home. Traffic through Fort Worth was horrible, and when we got to the 820 bypass, we got off of 35W - traffic was much better. We love to go on trips, whether with the trailer or without - but, it sure is nice to come back home.

Tater

That was Cowboys owner Jerry Jones' bus. It is used as an office and lounge for entertaining VIPs.

It is used as an office and lounge for entertaining VIPs.

Guess my invitation got lost in the mail.